Chapter 247 : Chapter 247
Chapter 247. The Argument at the Meeting
Inside Snow Bear City, far from the lord’s castle, there stood a large house built with excellent stone.
It had originally belonged to one of the lord’s trusted confidants. Because he had earned the lord’s trust, his house had been built even grander than the homes of the territorial knights.
But it was precisely because it had been built too grandly that both the mercenaries and the followers of the Church of the Goddess of the Currents had immediately taken a liking to it.
Naturally, the lord’s confidant could not refuse the requests of either side. Even if he had tried to refuse, it would have been useless.
And now, this house had become the site of a three-way meeting.
On the beastmen’s side, they had sent a beastman named Benedict as their representative for the negotiations.
A patch of brown fur grew along his arms, while his neck looked no different from that of an ordinary human.
On the side of the Church of the Goddess of the Currents, although more than a hundred followers had arrived over the past few days, the quality of their professionals was far inferior to that of the earlier group, so Bishop Gillian still attended as their representative.
Lastly came the mercenaries’ side. Although Patrick and Liam had tried very hard, mercenaries were simply too accustomed to freedom.
Mercenaries were just like that. You could spend a sum of money to hire a team that looked extremely powerful on paper, but when it came to carrying out critical missions, one should never place too much hope in mercenaries.
Their reliability in defensive battles was even worse than that of a squad of farmers.
Every mercenary knew that they had come to make money, not to risk their lives. So even when a lord hired them in hopes that they would fight desperately, they would often betray that lord at the crucial moment.
Every lord knew this, yet there was nothing any of them could do about it. That was simply the nature of mercenaries.
As for the fearless ones one might manage to find, they had probably already died on some previous mission.
Mercenaries were simply too freedom-loving by nature. None of them wanted to place their fate in someone else’s hands.
That was why this time there were no fewer than five representatives from the mercenaries’ side.
Among them was the group represented by Patrick and Liam, which was the largest mercenary force present. The remaining three representatives each stood for a different mercenary company.
And yet the group represented by Patrick and Liam still failed to account for even half of the total number of mercenaries.
The beastman Benedict and Bishop Gillian of the Church of the Goddess of the Currents both looked at the mercenary contingent with expressions of disdain.
Both of them knew that, perhaps at present, the mercenaries had the largest number of First-Tier Professionals among all the factions, perhaps even around seventy percent of the combined number fielded by the other two sides.
But both also knew that if conflict truly broke out among the three parties, the mercenaries would definitely be the first to die, because their organizational structure was simply too weak.
They would not even need to use inducements through profit, a method that would very likely work.
If they simply threw all their forces forward, it was entirely possible that these mercenaries would collapse in total disorder.
But even in such circumstances, they still had no choice but to take the mercenaries seriously and allow them to voice their opinions.
Because they all knew that whichever side won over the mercenaries would have the greater chance of victory.
The strongest force present was actually the Church of the Goddess of the Currents, represented by Gillian.
Though there were only this many followers gathered around Snow Bear Territory, one must remember that the Church of the Goddess of the Currents was a faith-based religion of the seas.
In this age, when maritime power was becoming ever more important, its strength absolutely could not be underestimated.
Both the beastmen and the mercenaries knew that time was on the Church’s side. If they dragged things out here for another month or so, the number of followers of the Church of the Goddess of the Currents arriving in Snow Bear Territory would exceed the combined total of the other two factions.
The beastman Benedict was one of the few clever people among the beastmen. It seemed that neither of his parents had been pure-blooded beastmen. Rather, they had been beastmen with relatively strong human blood.
Yet despite the thinness of their bloodline, beastmen did not rely on such objective blood purity to identify their own kind. They recognized one another by outward traits.
Benedict had never seen his parents since childhood. At any rate, from the moment he could remember, he had been living among the beastman tribes.
Thanks to the fur on his arms, he had gained the beastmen’s recognition.
And within the beastman tribe, he had displayed something different from the other beastmen—namely, a bit of intelligence.
It was through his efforts that his tribe had not immediately started fighting these people, but had instead sent him in for negotiations.
Benedict looked toward the mercenaries. Strictly speaking, they stood on the same side as the mercenaries, but Benedict knew very well, and the mercenaries knew it just as well, that the two sides could never truly stand together.
Nominally speaking, they had all come here under the mission given by the Lord of the City of White Dragon Harbor, seeking that azure box. From that perspective, both they and the Lord of the City of White Dragon Harbor were “allies.”
But the phrase “the ally of my ally is not necessarily my ally” was equally true here.
Only one of the two sides could take that azure box to the Lord of the City of White Dragon Harbor and exchange it, according to the contract, for what they wanted.
Even if the two sides joined forces, why would the Lord of the City of White Dragon Harbor pay an additional reward to the other party as well? Did he have too much money to spare?
So not only was there no alliance at all between the beastmen and the mercenaries, there was actually a life-and-death rivalry between them.
And on top of that, even the mercenaries themselves did not speak with one voice, so naturally there was no way for them to unite.
In truth, nothing could really be negotiated at this meeting. Everyone present was determined to obtain that thing, and the contradictions between them were impossible to reconcile. There was simply no real way to negotiate.
The reason they had gathered here was not to discuss who would ultimately own that box. That would have been meaningless. Everyone knew that once it was found, a great battle would be unavoidable.
What they wanted to discuss was how to establish the best possible defensive net within Snow Bear Territory, so that the thing would not slip away right under their noses.
But when it came to the specific arrangements for defense and search operations, they began arguing over the matter and could not reach a consensus for a very long time.
The beastmen, represented by Benedict, hoped that every road would be permanently guarded, with personnel from all three factions stationed together.
That way, once something was discovered, the beastmen could immediately summon their army through the information network and smash the other two factions into the ground.
On the mercenaries’ side, Patrick and Liam hoped to carry out a full-scale search, sweeping from the border toward Snow Bear City. In that way, they could surround those thieves and perhaps even capture them directly...
As for Gillian of the Church of the Goddess of the Currents, she simply divided Snow Bear Territory into three sections and said that every force present should search within its assigned area. Whoever found that thing would own it.
She had even deliberately made the territories assigned to herself and the mercenaries very small, while giving the beastmen an extremely large area. Because of this, the three sides once again argued furiously.
To make matters worse, the other three mercenary representatives each supported one of the three proposals above, making the situation even more chaotic.
In the end, it was the beastman Benedict who temporarily proposed setting that issue aside. He then changed the subject and said:
“When I entered the city, I heard that the lord of Snow Bear Territory was still in his castle. Are you all just wild dogs that only know how to eat meat? Why haven’t you dealt with that troublesome lord first? And you still let him send people across Snow Bear Territory to capture those magical creatures...”